Iris Edda Nowenstein
CEO
PhD Icelandic linguistics
MS speech-language pathology
About Vit
About Vit
About Vit
For technological transfer and innovation in the field of speech and language symptoms and disorders, we need clinicians who understand tech and engineers who understand clinicians. This is what we have at Vit, paired with deep knowledge about languages and their diversity.
We know that speech and language constitute a remarkably rich source of data. It’s not only what we say but how we say it. This is something we all experience when picking up on the subtle cues in voices we know well, when only a few seconds into a phone call, for example, can tell us whether the person we’re talking to just woke up, has a cold or maybe a big smile on their face.
As speech-language pathologists, we know speech and language also contain important cues about developmental disorders such as DLD and neurological conditions such as post-stroke aphasia, dementia and motor speech disorders due to e.g. Parkinson’s or ALS. As experts in speech and language technology, we know how to build the tools to extract this information automatically. Through our background in academic research, we have specialized in the way these cues can vary across languages and speaker profiles, collaborating with pharma and other industry partners on how to transform our findings into actionable endpoints for clinical trials.
Our mission is to harness the streams of information in speech and language through linguistically grounded automatic analysis. The promise of digital biomarkers can easily break if language diversity and multilingualism are not part of the equation from the start. With our background in linguistics, speech-language pathology and speech and language processing, our goal is to make sure cutting-edge technology serves the people who need it the most. Joining a vibrant innovation culture in Iceland, we are proud to say that Vit is the first spinoff from the University of Iceland’s School of Humanities.
